Russian envoy to the Contact Group Boris Gryzlov said that Kiev’s proposal to deploy an international police mission in Donbass contradicted every basic principle of settlement in east Ukraine

OSCE envoy Martin Sajdik

MINSK, April 6. /TASS/. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has not brought forward any concrete proposals to send an international police mission to Donbass, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine Martin Sajdik told reporters after the Group’s regular meeting on Wednesday.

"It is an issue of security and, of course, it was on the table," Sajdik said, declining to comment on the idea initiated by Kiev.

"Until now both the secretariat and German OSCE Chairmanship have not brought forward this proposal so I cannot comment on it," he said.

Earlier in the day, Russian envoy to the Contact Group Boris Gryzlov said that Kiev’s proposal to deploy an international police mission in Donbass contradicted every basic principle of settlement in east Ukraine. "Moreover, we know the position of the second side of the intra-Ukrainian conflict as they see an attempt of foreign occupation of their territory in such actions. This means that similar calls will not only hamper search for peaceful resolution but will also provoke the deterioration of the situation, and I am confident that neither Ukraine nor European Union nor Russia are interested in this," he added.

"In security issues, all sides should be as careful as possible when proposing initiatives," Gryzlov noted. "The principle ‘Do not harm’ should be followed here, in order not to destroy what has already been achieved," he concluded.

Denis Pushilin, a senior spokesman for the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Wednesday that the Joint Control and Coordination Center, which is in charge of monitoring the observance of ceasefire by parties to the armed civil conflict in eastern Ukraine, does not collaborate with the OSCE Monitoring Mission in Ukraine intensively enough.

"In spite of the huge amount of work accomplished to date, we’re compelled to state serious shortcomings in the operations of the Special Control and Coordination Center," said Denis Pushilin, the plenipotentiary representative of the DPR to the Minsk talks on ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

"The main problems lies in the incomplete staffing of the JCCC and the absence of smooth contacts between the JCCC and the OSCE, as well as the insufficient number of monitoring stations at the spots where most violations of the ceasefire occur," Pushilin’s press secretary Victoria Talakina quoted him in Facebook.

She added in this connection Pushilin made a demand at the Wednesday meeting of the Minsk Group for settling the conflict in Ukraine that the operations of the Center should be normalized since its establishment envisioned participation of all the parties to the conflict, joint decisions and the sharing of responsibilities.

"The JCCC is an efficacious instrument for settling this conflict and normalization of its operations would make it possibly to reduce the current passions considerably," Pushilin said.